Meditations

“ You can either fix your attention upon, and make the predominant subject of your religious contemplations, a truth which shall make you glad and strong, or a half-truth, which shall make you sorrowful, and therefore weak. Your meditations may either centre mainly upon your own selves, your faults and failings, and the like; or they may centre mainly upon God and His love, Christ and His grace, the Holy Spirit and His communion. ”

“ Thus in our meditations, to intermix soliloquy and prayer; sometimes speaking to our own hearts, and sometimes to God, is, I apprehend, the highest step we can advance to in this heavenly work. Nor should we imagine, it will be as well to take up with prayer alone, and lay aside meditation. ”

“ Thus meditating, you will be ceaselessly fortifying yourself against your only real enemy, your selfish, perishable self, and will be establishing yourself more and more firmly in the divine and imperishable self that is inseparable from Truth. The direct outcome of your meditations will be a calm, spiritual strength which will be your stay and resting-place in the struggle of life. Great is the overcoming power of holy thought, and the strength and knowledge gained in the hour of silent meditation will enrich the soul with saving remembrance in the hour of strife, of sorrow, or of temptation. ”

“ The prayers, and especially the meditations, are intended to fall in with that rhythmical and, so to speak, tautological instinct which is observable in the expression of the young mind as it dwells upon and endeavours to grasp ideas which strike and please it. ”

“ If you are able to manage meditations methodically it will be best; but if you cannot do that, without so much striving as will confound you, and distract you, and cast you into melancholy, it is better let your meditations be more short and easy, like ejaculatory prayers; but let them usually be operative to do some good upon your hearts. ”

“ But those who cannot have the opportunity, to meditate twice-a-day, after this manner, they may use them, to wit, they may take to their consideration the seven former meditations in the one week, and the latter in another week; or they may chiefly insist upon those of the life and passion of our Saviour; although the other be not to be neglected, especially in the beginning of a soul's conversion, to whom they are proper, when the fear of God, contrition and horror of sin, is chiefly to be regarded and sought after. ”

“ It is God that speaks to you in meditation, and God speaks to you much better than any preacher can. It is through meditation that the saints have been sanctified, for it is in meditation we learn to turn away our hearts from all sinful attachment to this world, and to direct them towards God. ”

“ Frequent meditation engenders science and knowledge of a man's self and of God knowledge engenders affections of compunction for our sins and miseries; compunction awakens affections of devotion towards God for His greatness and mercies; and devotion perfects prayer, making our spirit to join itself lovingly to Almighty God, and to ask of Him things decent and fitting, and in such manner as is convenient. ”

“ Let your quiet endeavour be to draw yourself into affections of the heart, rather than into reflections of the mind. Reflection is the means only, affection the end. Not only commence your meditation with recollection and peace, but without anxiety or superfluous fears of distraction. ”

“ In meditation, we are to establish ourselves very well in the truth of the mystery which faith teaches us, labouring to believe and to understand it truly as it passed and as it is revealed, ii. We are to inquire the true causes and roots from whence proceeded the matter that we meditate, excluding the causes that are false and apparent iii. By reasoning, we are to search out the true ends for which it was ordained, excluding all others that are contrary, iv. ”

“ Picture in your imagination some object or scene connected with the subject of meditation. 3. Take a respectful and not too easy posture in meditating. We should try to come to prayer with a disengaged mind and a tranquil heart.
Begin your Mental Prayer by realizing the presence of God, and kiss your crucifix devoutly. Preparatory Prayer: O my God, I offer myself entirely to Thee, and beg of Thee to direct all the powers of my soul to know, honor, love, and serve Thee. Grant, dearest Lord, that I may practise the virtue taught by this meditation. ”

“ Besides this, experience teaches, that when a great spirit or affection for any virtue whatsoever is predominant in a soul, upon what thing soever it meditates it takes occasion to feed and augment itself. ”

“ We must make petitions. — ft is in meditation that God shows us our misery, and how much we need his grace to conquer our evil inclinations. For this reason the time of meditation is the fittest time for prayer. God ordinarily gives his grace, and especially the grace of perseverance, to those who pray. ”

“ After having discovered by meditation what we have to do on our part in order to live in conformity with the holy will of God, and having asked his assistance, it still remains for us to put in practice what we have thus seen to be necessary, otherwise our meditation will be fruitless. ”

“ Spiritual meditation is the pathway to Divinity. It is the mystic ladder which reaches from earth to heaven, from error to Truth, from pain to peace. Every saint has climbed it; every sinner must sooner or later come to it, and every weary pilgrim that turns his back upon self and the world, and sets his face resolutely toward the Father’s Home, must plant his feet upon its golden rounds. Without its aid you cannot grow into the divine state, the divine likeness, the divine peace, and the fadeless glories and unpolluting joys of Truth will remain hidden from you. ”

“ To meditate means in general nothing else than to reflect seriously on some subject. Meditation, as mental prayer, is a serious reflection on some religious truth or event, united with reference and application to ourselves, in order thereby to excite in us certain pious sentiments— such as contrition, humility, faith, hope, charity, etc. — and to move our will to form good resolutions conformable to these pious sentiments. Such an exercise has naturally a beneficial influence on our soul and greatly conduces to enlighten our mind and to move our will to practise virtue. ”

“ Meditation centered upon divine realities is the very essence and soul of prayer. It is the silent reaching of the soul toward the Eternal. Mere petitionary prayer without meditation is a body without a soul, and is powerless to lift the mind and heart above sin and affliction. If you are daily praying for wisdom, for peace, for loftier purity and a fuller realization of Truth, and that for which you pray is still far from you, it means that you are praying for one thing while living out in thought and act another. ”

“ So believing, so aspiring, so meditating, divinely sweet and beautiful will be your spiritual experiences, and glorious the revelations that will enrapture your inward vision. As you realize the divine Love, the divine Justice, the divine Purity, the Perfect Law of Good, or God, great will be your bliss and deep your peace. ”

“ Meditation is the blessed furnace in which the holy fire of divine love is kindled. Make mental prayer every day, meditate on the passion of Jesus Christ, and doubt not but you too shall burn with this blessed flame. ”

“ And thus with every error, every selfish desire, every human weakness; by the power of meditation is it overcome, and as each sin, each error is thrust out, a fuller and clearer measure of the Light of Truth illumines the pilgrim soul. ”

“ Hence meditation is an exercise of the faculties of our soul — memory, understanding, and will."
"Meditation, as a part of mental prayer" says St. Francis of Sales, "is an attentive thought voluntarily repeated or entertained in the mind to excite the will to holy and salutary affections and resolutions" It differs from mere study in its object. We study to improve our minds and to store up information; we meditate to move the will to pray and to embrace what is good. We study that we may know; we meditate that we may pray. ”

“ But we can easily turn our spiritual reading into a meditation, as, for instance, when we read only a few lines at a time from "The Following of Christ"; then meditate, reflect, consider our own conduct in connection with the subject treated, make devout acts and pious resolutions, and finally pray to God for His grace that we may conquer our wicked inclinations, practise" some particular virtue, and lead a holy life. ”

“ In mental prayer, meditation (the exercise of the intellect) is only a means to the end, which is the elevation of the soul to God — conversation with God. When thinking and reflecting the soul speaks to itself, reasons with itself; in prayer that follows it speaks to God. It is plain that mental prayer or meditation is something more than mere spiritual reading. ”

“ Meditation is the means of unification of the subject and object. Meditate:
Above, it is full of me; below, it is full of me; in the middle, it is full of me. I am in all beings, and all beings are in me. Om Tat Sat, I am It. I am existence above mind. I and the one spirit of the universe. I am neither pleasure nor pain. ”

“ Or a small portion of a book, or an epistle, or a gospel, through which we go regularly for meditation, may be considered every day, without, however, suffering oneself to be brought into bondage by this plan.
Learned commentaries I have found to store the head with many notions, and often also with the truth of God; but when the Spirit teaches, through the instrumentality of prayer and meditation, the heart is affected. ”

“ I believe that that meditation will beget within you a feeling of gratitude for God’s word, a greater appreciation of it, and, therefore, a more careful study of it and a more diligent adherence unto it. ”

“ The use of meditation is the acquirement of a knowledge of eternal principles, and the power which results from meditation is the ability to rest upon and trust those principles, and so become one with the Eternal. The end of meditation is, therefore, direct knowledge of Truth, God, and the realization of divine and profound peace. ”

“ Meditation is the intense dwelling, in thought, upon an idea or theme, with the object of thoroughly comprehending it, and whatsoever you constantly meditate upon you will not only come to understand, but will grow more and more into its likeness, for it will become incorporated into your very being, will become, in fact, your very self. ”

“ As, by the power of meditation, you grow in wisdom, you will relinquish, more and more, your selfish desires which are fickle, impermanent, and productive of sorrow and pain; and will take your stand, with increasing steadfastness and trust, upon unchangeable principles, and will realize heavenly rest. ”

“ Meanwhile an activity, which leads us not inwards, has taken place of that tranquil retiring meditation on the things of the unseen world which formed the deep, absorbing, contemplative, piety of our forefathers ”

“ The meditation they urged on us has been explained as "the inexpressible yearning of the inner man to go out into the infinite." But that Infinite we would enter is living. It is the ultimate being of us. Meditation is a fiery brooding on that majestical Self. We imagine ourselves into Its vastness. We conceive ourselves as mirroring Its infinitudes, as moving in all things, as living in all beings, in earth, water, air, fire, æther. ”

“ If in holy meditation thou get near to Christ, and warm thy heart with the fire of love, and then come {250} but seldom, thy former coldness will soon return; especially as the work is so spiritual, and against the bent of depraved nature. It is true, the intermixing of other duties, especially secret prayer, may do much to the keeping thy heart above; but meditation is the life of most other duties, and the view of heaven is the life of meditation. ”

“ Now the great light by which we can clearly see the motives for which we act is meditation.
In the peaceful calm of solitude, and in the silent slumber of the passions, meditation puts us in presence of ourselves, before our own eyes, by which we see ourselves as in a true mirror. Meditation teaches us to judge without prejudice what we have done and to determine with propriety what we should do, by making the experience of the past our lamp for the future, and by converting past mistakes into practical lessons for the present. ”

“ Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, whereby, in her long removes, she discerns God as if he were near at hand. It is thinking, not growth, that makes the perfect man or woman. Hence life may be said to have commenced when the mind learns to meditate upon its nature, its powers, and its possibilities. ”

“ But meditation, to be fruitful, must go deeper than the mind; the heart, too, must be waked to action. The mind should minister to the heart as does a nurse to a little child, collecting and preparing food for meditation, and masticating it herself before feeding it to her charge. ”

“ Although I cannot deny, but after some pious action, the mind is better disposed for meditation, for as dried wood quickly burneth, so the mind that is well disposed, is sooner kindled with this celestial fire. ”

“ When you are praying and reading, there are the graces of faith, desire, love, repentance, &c. to be exercised there: when you are alone, meditation may help to actuate any grace as you find most needful: when you are conferring with others, you must exercise love to them, and love to that truth about which you do confer, and other graces as the subject shall require: when you are provoked or under suffering you have patience to exercise. ”

“ There is an unavoidable tendency to become literally the embodiment of that quality upon which one most constantly thinks. Let, therefore, the object of your meditation be above and not below, so that every time you revert to it in thought you will be lifted up; let it be pure and unmixed with any selfish element; so shall your heart become purified and drawn nearer to Truth, and not defiled and dragged more hopelessly into error. ”